‘You would not.’ Her marble-grey eyes searched mine. ‘Truly, it had been my wish to avoid conversing upon this matter. However, as you have seen fit to come here and heedlessly abandon the position in which I laboured long to establish you, the situation must be made plain.’ She inhaled and rose from her chair before crossing the room to peer behind one door and then the other. She shut each of them securely and glided almost noiselessly back to her seat. She leaned towards me. ‘Child, you must believe me when I say that it saddens me to reveal this to you.’ She spoke softly. ‘I am quite uncertain how to put it. You see, much of what you believe to be true is nothing but a fiction. Indeed, much of the existence you have come to know in Paris is a sham.’ She placed her hand upon mine, a brief touch over the leather of my glove. ‘For this I am truly sorry, but you must be made to understand that it was necessary.’

I studied her features, searching for some greater explanation in them, but found nothing of any sense.

‘You must not believe that I lay in wait for you like a spider, weaving some elaborate trap. No, this, all of this, came about quite by chance, from your arrival at my gate to . . .’ She paused and looked away, carefully selecting her words. ‘I will concede that I was most intrigued by the letter Mr Savill sent me, announcing that he wished to introduce me to a Lady Allenham . . . but all was made clear to me when you recounted your story. Indeed, as you sat in my drawing room I fairly marvelled at my good fortune. It was as if the heavens had parted and the angels had delivered you to me on their very wings. Why, Venus could not have invented a creature more perfectly formed to Orléans’s tastes: such youthful beauty, sweet and ruined, trusting . . . and English. I knew I was certain to succeed with you.’ She caught my eye, and gave me the only smile she had offered since my arrival. It was a curious one, of almost menacing delight. ‘However, when you began to speak of your intentions to locate your beloved Allenham, I recognized that it was necessary to formulate a plan at once.’

I listened, but there seemed nothing in her words which amounted to any sense. I wondered if I had failed to apprehend some part of her story.

‘I am afraid I did what circumstances demanded to keep you beneath my roof and under my watch. Your jewels were not stolen. I arranged for it to appear so, but I kept them in my possession until it became necessary to establish you in separate lodgings.’